The dissemination and reassessment of private religious space in early modern England: an examination of the cultural contexts surrounding royal, episcopal and collegiate chapels from the accession of James I to the Restoration

The relationship between architecture and religion in seventeenth-century England is a problematic one. Despite the apparent ease with which separate theological positions can be allied to a preference or distrust of visual display, closer examination reveals several examples which do not reflect such a directly causal relationship. The conventional model offered by architectural history is still largely dominated by a polarization between two extremes. On one hand is advanced Protestantism, which distrusted architecture's potential deployment at the service of religion. On the other is a High-Church or Laudian position which attempted to recover visual richness and elaboration as a prerequisite for ecclesiastical architecture.

Building upon recent advances made in historical scholarship on the early Stuart Church and in architectural history, this thesis explores the relationship between religion and architecture through three distinct types of chapel architecture. First are the royal chapels of the Jacobean Court, which were renovated to give visual expression to current religious policies. The second are episcopal chapels, which are here presented within their cultural context and shown to carry significant meanings for the post-Reformation English episcopate. The third are new college chapels built in Oxford, whose architecture responded to the immediate concerns over the reformed Church's identity and legitimacy.

What emerges from considering these three typologies are shared parameters of expectation and association. This consistency crosses not only separate types of chapel, but also opposing theological positions. Such apparent unity of purpose and message, embodied in inherited and newly-built chapel architecture, stands to challenge the assumed polarization of stylistic forms which has dominated the debates within architectural history. it also serves to illustrate architecture's validity as a potential source for early modern English Church history.